I just killed off Cliff Brooks

I have also killed Cliff Brooks..

Here is the very very rough version...

The instructions were to meet at the end of pier thirty nine. He had reached the area early, and not having spent much time in Human Earth, he visited the shops along the pier. The press of humanity was almost too much. How could they (the humans) stand to be crowded into together so much? He didn’t know, but sound of a barker drew his attention to the very end of the pier. There he saw a stage set up for performers. On the stage was a man balancing on a unicycle juggling swords. Hmm not a big deal, but the audience seemed to think this was an amazing feat. The unicyclist threw all the swords/daggers into the air, leapt off the cycle, and caught them one by one by the handles. The crowd cheered.
The man bowed from the waist and stood up straight. “Thank you! My name is Cliff Brooks, and this is what I do for a living.
Once the show is over I ask for a dollar or two to be put into the basket. Thanks. And now for my last trick…”

The man went behind the little stage thing and withdrew a wire mesh cage filled with squirrels. He put the cage down on the stage floor and carefully extracted a squirrel. He chatted with the audience and it for a moment before placing it on his shoulder. He reached down into the cage and withdrew another squirrel, and did the same thing. He repeated the process until all five squirrels were out and sitting somewhere on his person. He made sure to reassure the audience that the squirrels were quite friendly and were well trained. They enjoyed it as well, or so he said. He went into his show, first juggling two, then at a word, one by one, the squirrels leapt off his body and into his juggling hands. The squirrels were flipping and doing other acrobatics in the air which wowed the audience, and impressed Merrick. Especially since Merrick could not detect any magic being used.

The crowd was cheering, the squirrels were chittereing away, happy as far as Merrick could tell. When one squirrel went too close to a lit torch. The poor little thing caught it’s tail on fire, and within one rotation, all the squirrels were burning. It was beautiful in a macabre sort of way, as long as Merrick could tune out the horrified screams from not only the audience, but from Mr. Brooks as well. It was too late however. The squirrels, driven mad by fear and pain attacked Mr. Brooks, catching his hair and clothing on fire, as well as biting him in the face, hands, and even more gruesomely, on his neck. One bit through his jugular, and blood fountained in heart beating gushes out of his neck. Too late to do anything, the man died within seconds, collapsing on the ground, soaked to the skin as someone had grabbed a bucket of water and had doused the man and his squirrels. The last glimpse Merrick had of the scene before the police intervened and closed off the end of the pier, was of a bloody burnt man lying on the ground surrounded by the charred remains of the five squirrels.

~ S

Wow. That is quite demented. And leads me to ask an even more demented question: is blood flammable? If not, is there something that could be mixed with it to make it such? Just... you know... idle curiosity... no reason.... *shifty eyes*

And I have not yet killed Cliff Brooks, but I intend to eventually. I haven't decided how yet. In a dark, twisted Seussian world, what would be a horrific death?

I'm writing a book with a super hero in it. If there winds up being a death, it's sooo going to be Cliff Brooks. :)

Thanks!
I love my demented imagination!
And to answer your question, no blood is not flammable. To make it so, you could probably add phospherous, or one of the 'hols' (ie ethanol,alcohol,menthol) But you'd probably have to add the stuff after it leaves the body. Or you can have an alien or sussical being have phospherous ichor instead of blood... think of the pretty picture that would make would make if that individual got a paper cut! (Glowy flamy thing! ;-) )

~ Steph

Cliff has made an appearance in an unlikely spot but I fully intend on killing him off. And he's such a nice character, too. *sniff*

Bah. Merely killing Mr. Brooks is passé

In my novel, Cliff Brooks will rise from the grave as a demonic zombie.

Cliff met his end in my book on about page 50. Newly exonerated Senator misses his footing and breaks his neck falling down a flight of stone steps. This year, once was enough. Last year, I killed him several times in different ways.

Melissa

"a demonic zombie." - Nice touch!

I killed of one Cliff Brooks when something was flung from a trebuchet by accident and he ran into the church graveyard to catch it, not knowing it backed up to a quarry. His last words were, "I got it! Oh s**t!"

I was going to have multiple Cliff Brooks with different middle names and find interesting ways to kill them, but went on with my novel. I'm handwriting and passed 45 K today. I miss write-ins and home Internet access.
Seems like it's faster to write at home than taking the bus to access computer/Internet.
And just dealing with too much fatigue this year. Bwaaa - well, soon I'll hit 50K and have time to hang out online.

*chuckles* I was wondering if we'd fallen off of ... well, offing Cliff this year, because I went to the Mystery thread and there were no records of our beloved redshirt's untimely demise. People acted like I was weird when I mentioned it, and as I was explaining it was a Bay Area phenomenon, it occurred to me to check in here, too.

A favor I'd ask: Go and represent -- back me up so they know I'm not insane over there!
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3136052

My version of Cliff is Wesley C. Brooks, a futuristic truck driver on Mars. He's a bit of a talker, interacts with the MC and a mysterious hitchhiker, and he's about to turn up dead, hanging from the side of his truck in chains with a hole punched in his spacesuit's helmet. The readers know about the hitchhiker, but the MC was the last person to see him alive.

-Traveller

Being a great lover of Dr. Seuss when I was a kid, there are various ways to meet your untimely end in a Seussian farce ...

Such as a Horton style elephant who compacts him with his arse
Or perhaps some sort of poison goo which makes our man quite sick
Since not a soul since Bartholemew told him not to eat Oobleck
Or perhaps a deadly duel, between a Lorax over trees
Or Fox in socks that run him down and chew upon his knees.

The trick of Doctor Seussian death is simply only that
You improvise the weirdness like a Cat who wears a Hat.

-Traveller

Nice. Very well done!

I had actually not heard of this tradition before. Probably because I'm more of a SoBaNaNo Lurker than anything else...

Sadly, there is no place for a death in my current NaNovel. However, when I revise my 2005 novel, I might have to see about adding it in retroactively...

My Cliff Brooks met his end battling one of the MCs when they both tumbled over a steep hill and Brooks accidentally impaled himself on his own knife.

A steep hill? You mean, like a CLIFF? :)

I killed Cliff Brooks in a dream situation. He was an obese man and died of a heart attack while his wife looked on and sobbed. Poor Cliff.

Cliff was a Secret Service agent and got into a tussle with a would-be assassin (of Maximo Helwig, the new president -elect). They both fell over a railing at an automobile assembly plant, and poor Cliff got bolted to a car door. Slow, painful, bloody death. But really... my novel's a comedy!

- Meg